


All My Lovely Sins

by Lise



Series: Ghosts of All My Lovely Sins [1]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: (literally though), AU of an AU, Cuddling & Snuggling, Established Relationship, Gift Fic, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Multi, Pre-Threesome, Therapeutic Cuddling, Threesome - M/M/M, beginning relationships, conflict still unresolved but we're working on it, self indulgent fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-11
Updated: 2013-08-11
Packaged: 2017-12-23 02:55:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,938
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/921164
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lise/pseuds/Lise
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes, one makes decisions in a split second. They might have been different with a little more consideration. Life hinges on those moments. </p><p>(Or: Loki makes a call, Steve lays down the law, and Thor might be getting his brother back. Functionally a prelude to "only my hands to guide me.")</p>
            </blockquote>





	All My Lovely Sins

**Author's Note:**

  * For [DevhanAer](https://archiveofourown.org/users/DevhanAer/gifts).



> So the lovely [Bree](http://thescentofwhiteroses.tumblr.com) requested fic from me for her birthday (which was...YESTERDAY IN MY TIME ZONE not doing too bad here) of Steve/Loki/Thor, reluctant cuddling, and I rapidly discovered a way in which to indulge all my shameful desires. My dear, I hope it pleases. If this becomes a verse/thing, I'm blaming you. 
> 
> If people want context - consider this an AU to the AU that is Remember This Cold. Because threesomes, guys. _Because threesomes._

It was too much. He’d known it was too much the moment he’d cast the working, felt it pull at him, drawing on resources he didn’t have and sucking at his chest. He’d felt his heart stagger and his blood cease, a little bit of death harsh and bitter on his tongue-

There was enough in him to do it, though. Just not enough left after. 

He felt himself slipping toward the floor, everything bleeding out into white that folded around him and took him tenderly in. 

This was terribly prosaic, Loki thought vaguely. Not at all what he would have chosen. Embarrassing, really. Loki hiccuped a laugh. What a silly thing to worry about. And at a time like this. 

Oh well. What could be done? And it could, after all, be much worse.

* * *

“Loki? _Loki!_ ”

Someone was shouting at him from very far away. He fought his way toward consciousness, finding it very difficult to reach, far more distant than he’d initially thought, and it took him a few moments to recognize what he was feeling as magical exhaustion. It took him another moment to realize that he hadn’t had it this bad since his earliest experiments. This might be…unfortunate. 

He was still alive, though. That was a good sign. Someone shook his body, though, and if he knew he should react he nonetheless could not quite summon the will to make himself. He was cold all the way down to his bones, but distant from his body, bound together by the thinnest of tethers that might dissolve in a sharp wind. _Too far,_ he thought vaguely. _Should have…_ His eyes fluttered open and he was looking into an impossible shade of blue, so _violently_ bright that his head spun. “Loki,” said a sharp voice, again. “Can you – look at me, what happened, what did you do-”

Words half formed and broke apart like sea ice, crashed together and jumbled and drifted away. He blinked, trying to draw himself together, but it was useless. Really he might as well just let-

“Loki!” Whoever it was was manhandling him, now, pulling him upright with warm, warm hands, one burning on the back of his neck. He felt like a ragdoll. “Thor – I don’t know what’s the matter with him-”

Large, warm hands clasped his face while Loki was still trying to work out where Thor fit into things, and he jolted, a bolt of energy flooding into him. His eyes snapped open, and it was indeed Thor’s face looming close, features crinkled with worry. “Loki,” he said, and he felt it in his bones, and shivered. “What’s happened to you?” His voice came back to him, a little, words falling into place, his head clearing. He found a weak smile, a helpless giggle rising in his throat. 

“I think – I may – may have made an error in judgment,” he said. Thor released him and Loki felt the momentary surge of energy oozing away, leached by the cold lodged in his chest, and heard himself whimper pathetically. He was too empty to be ashamed of the sound. 

“Do you know what that means – he’s _freezing._ ” Steve – it must be him – laid a hand on his forehead that felt hot enough to burn. “What can I-”

“It’s magic sickness,” Thor said, and oh, good. He remembered. Not that Thor was a healer, but at least when he faded Steve would know why. He hoped neither of them would watch. It was an ugly thing, that, and that he hadn’t died immediately meant it would be long. “Inexperienced mages – die of it, sometimes, when they exert themselves too much too quickly. I have not – it’s been many years since…” Thor’s voice wavered, stammered, and it felt like an echo of Loki’s heart staggering drunkenly in his chest.

“ _Thor_.” Loki swore he could feel every word vibrate inside him like he was a hollow instrument, a cello, maybe. It almost hurt, like he could vibrate his own atoms apart, dissolve into dust and less than dust. “Focus! What do we do?” Hot fingers jammed against his throat like they would sear his skin and his head cleared a little again. “His pulse keeps speeding up-”

“I don’t _remember_!” Thor’s voice sounded panicked. “I never listened to his explanations about this sort of thing, I can’t think what-” 

“ _Try._ ” They both sounded so…tense. It was making _him_ tense, or would have, if he had the control over his body for it. But Steve was right there, warm, his heartbeat thudding not too far away. Time stretched, slowed, and he was going to fall into the spaces between seconds like a deep well (and then the dark)-

 _No._ Apathy vanished to be replaced by roaring fear, a rush of adrenaline. He clawed for purchase, for something to hold on to, and groping he found Steve’s wrist. It was almost impossible work to bring his hand up and make his fingers curl, and then they were pressing against skin. It was just enough to let him remember how to make mind and mouth and vocal cords work together, to say “touch” before it fractured away again. 

Steve jumped. “Did you hear – Loki, what did you say-”

“Touch,” said Thor, and he remembered now, thank the Norns. “He said – quickly, friend Steve, remove your clothing!” 

Loki resisted the urge to snicker, but he was sinking again, and no matter how he tried to hold on he kept slipping further away. The world was crumbling inch by inch, and he couldn’t quite puzzle out how to make it hold together so that he wouldn’t blow away.

Life flooded back into him so suddenly that he couldn’t hold back a yell. If his senses had been dulled, suddenly they were razor sharp, everything flooding in a rush of searing light and sound and pain, and he thrashed, trying to get away from it and make it stop-

“Stay calm,” Thor’s voice vibrated through his chest, loud and brassy. “Loki, stay-”

* * *

Someone was running their fingers through his hair. Low murmurs, somewhere. A conversation, perhaps? That seemed to matter less than he thought it ought to. Someone’s chest was pressed close against his back, someone else on his other side, and that seemed to matter less than it was supposed to as well. A hand moved lightly over his ribs, and Loki tried to focus. He didn’t remember being unclothed. 

But his thoughts seemed rather strangely fragmented in general, so perhaps he’d forgotten. 

The fingers in his hair stilled, and he made a quiet sound of protest. “Loki? Are you awake?” Thor’s voice, though it seemed strangely…quiet. Almost soft. Awake. Was he? 

“No,” he determined, after a moment’s thought. He shifted a little and moved his head to rest against a familiar shoulder. Not Thor’s, though. Steve, he thought, and smiled faintly. That was nice. He hadn’t had a pleasant dream in a long while. 

“Loki…” Steve sounded…reluctant. Why? Loki frowned, though only inwardly. His body didn’t seem to want to move very well. “I’m sorry, but you need to…”

Steve’s shoulder felt very warm. Or perhaps he was just very cold. “Mmm’t can wait,” he said. Loki wanted to enjoy this. While it lasted, and it wouldn’t. Not for long. Good things didn’t, as a rule. 

“Loki.” Steve’s voice was a little sharper. “Thor and I are doing what we can, but you must fight as well,” but he was starting to ebb away again, too. _Fight._ But he was so tired of… _Give up. Give in._ It was a siren song, powerfully tempting. Nothing wrong with that. (Cold, why was he so cold? But even that…) 

And then Thor’s hand wrapped around one of his wrists and stopped his drifting like an anchor in the sea floor.

“Listen to me,” he said, and his voice thrummed with command. When had he become a king? “Are you _giving up?_ Are you simply going to _surrender?_ ” Thor sounded angry, and Loki felt his body tense, half instinctively. “The Loki I know would _never_ lie down and give in to something so – so _mundane_ as exhaustion.” 

“Thor,” Steve said, and he sounded anxious. 

“I have to try,” Thor said roughly, and then, harsher, “It is sheer cowardice to give up a fight that can still be won. You never _used_ to be a coward, Loki. Have you become one?” 

A flash of anger flared up in him, but Loki didn’t have the energy to sustain it. _If you were as tired as I am-_ but he felt his heartbeat speed up and stagger on, stubbornly refusing to give in. 

“I am not a coward,” Loki mumbled, though it sounded feeble. “You don’t know…”

“A weakling, then,” Thor said, and hate twisted and gnawed at Loki’s stomach mingled with shame. _Aren’t you? After everything you’ve been through, simple exhaustion is finally what will end you? Pathetic._

 _“Thor,_ I don’t think-”

He needed to focus, but it was like trying to sharpen a knife with another knife, his thoughts sliding off each other, going nowhere. “Not,” he said, gathering the words. “Not – weak-”

Thor shook him, and the whole world rocked on its axis. “Then prove it,” he said, fierce and earnest and – desperate? “ _Prove_ it,” and Loki was cold and hot and cold and hot and-

_I’m not going to die today._

He forced his eyes open and clawed himself together, teeth clenched at the agony that was holding even a few scraps of magic. “I will,” he said, almost a snarl, and fighting the screaming of his body groped out in the dark until he found the deep golden veins of Thor’s life and the gold filigree tracery of Steve’s, and wrapped them into his own familiar ley lines. 

He heard Steve gasp, and Thor’s hand tightened almost painfully around his wrist, but neither of those were anything to the roar in his ears and the exquisite, overwhelming feeling of life flowing through him, pure energy burning him clean, scouring his veins. For a glorious moment he was aware of all three of them, the strong steadiness of his Captain and the deep, powerful flow of Thor, and he’d forgotten how this felt, how _intense_ the connection ran-

And then the world was gone again, washed clean, but this time it was just sleep reaching up to embrace him, and Loki folded into it with gratitude, the circuit still coursing through all three of them like a beacon through the dark.

* * *

Frigga had told him a thousand times how dangerous it was to overexert himself when it came to magic. _Power needs a source. Always. Once you pass your limit,_ she’d said, when he’d been very young, wide-eyed and just discovering his power. _Then, if you overreach, that power will be pulled from your body itself. If you try the wrong spell too soon, or try to do too much too quickly, magic can steal the breath from your lungs, sup on your blood, steal every last drop of energy from your physical being and leave you a husk. If you are lucky, it will kill you. If not…body severed from mind, you will drift in the Void._ Her eyes had pinned him, terrified, to the floor. _You must always be very, very careful._

He’d still managed to overexert himself to the point of severe danger three times.

Loki remembered the feeling of waking up afterwards well, and he knew it now. Lingering weakness that left his muscles feeling like liquid. Fuzziness in his head that could become a headache but was not quite one yet. Exhaustion carved deep into his bones. For all that, though, he could feel Thor at his back, breathing deep and slowly, and Steve pressed close on his other side, both of them asleep. Naturally. Even with two touchstones that kind of recalibration was far from easy, and took a toll on them as well. 

But there was something…

Thor snuffled into his hair, shifted the heavy arm slung over his waist. Steve shifted a little closer and sighed, nuzzling against Loki’s shoulder. For a split second, the current connected again and he was the live wire center of it, and the pieces connected, all at once. 

The comfort of Thor’s presence was suddenly anything but, and the blaze of fury gave him the energy to tear himself away from them both – _betrayer_ , he couldn’t help but think, of Steve – and across the room. His room. His _sanctuary…_

Steve woke with a startle, looking dazed. “Wha’sgoing – Loki?” he pushed himself up, blinking and bleary-eyed, and Loki pushed down the almost instinctive rush of fondness. Or maybe that was just vertigo. “What’re you…”

“What is _he_ doing here,” Loki hissed. He could feel himself losing strength rapidly. If he wasn’t careful, he would end up folding to the ground in a heap. Steve looked confused for a moment. Thor was waking, though slowly, as always when he thought he was safe, and Loki hated him for that as well, that he could still feel _safe_ around Loki when Loki would never feel safe again. 

_You grabbed onto him readily enough. Linked your self with his to save your pathetic life readily enough._

“Thor followed me,” Steve said, starting to frown. “He was the one who told me what had happened-”

Loki could feel his breathing quicken, the churning in his gut not quite panic. “I don’t want him here. I have _never_ wanted – and you let him _stay?_ ”

Steve’s frown deepened. “Loki,” he said, and he could just _hear_ the tone of voice, striving to stay reasonable, _why are you making such a fuss about this, why must you always become so hysterical._ The cold was seeping into him again, and he fought it back. 

Thor sat up, then, and echoed, “Loki?” rubbing one hand across his eyes, and Loki’s chest and throat clamped shut for a brief moment. “Is something wrong?” 

“ _You_ are,” Loki snapped, feeling himself almost vibrate. “You should not _be_ here, get out-”

Thor hesitated, and then said slowly. “I cannot.” Loki gritted his teeth. 

“Why? Because you do not wish it, and your wish is the only one that matters?” 

“That is not-”

“Because now that you have finally gained the opportunity to _impose_ upon me once more in a moment of weakness you could not possibly surrender it again?” 

Thor sat up, his expression clearing of sleep to turn toward a thundercloud. “That is unjust and I will not accept-”

“He’s _staying,_ ” Steve said, suddenly, and his voice was surprisingly sharp. Loki felt a small prickle of satisfaction to notice that Thor’s head whipped around as quickly as his own did. “Thor is staying,” he repeated, “because every time he tried to leave over the last nine hours you started to deteriorate again, and _nobody_ is letting that happen.” Loki blinked. Steve’s expression was tight-lipped and – angry? “I don’t know if you know how close you came to _dying-_ ”

Loki made an impatient slashing gesture with one hand. “That is hardly relevant right now,” he said dismissively, and realized belatedly that he probably should not have by the way both Thor _and_ Steve’s expressions went absolutely furious. 

“ _Hardly relevant,_ ” Steve said, flatly, and Loki was tempted to take a step back. “I think it’s _fairly_ relevant that you almost _killed_ yourself helping us get rid of that thing.”

“Don’t fixate,” Loki said impatiently. “We are not discussing that just now-”

“Maybe we _should._ ” 

“You _let_ him stay here, knowing what my feelings on the matter would be,” Loki said, his voice becoming harsh, almost desperate. _Who are you trying to convince, Loki Laufeyson? Who do you need to believe that you don’t want him here?_

“I did,” Steve said, “and I would make the same call again for more than one reason-”

“Loki,” Thor rumbled. “Whatever your feelings towards me…you cannot deny that you are not well. Can you not…at least set this aside for the moment, until you are recovered?” 

“I have not needed _you_ to help me recover myself for many years,” Loki snapped, not looking in Steve’s direction because it was easier to be angry at Thor, though even that…he didn’t quite seem to have the energy to keep it burning as hot as he needed to to drown out the rest. “I could have managed on my own, with time-”

“Even _I_ know that’s not true,” Steve said, loudly. “If Thor hadn’t been there – and I don’t think you should be up yet.”

“As soon as you are well again,” Thor said, “I swear to you that I will go-”

“You can go _now._ ” His head felt light and was starting to spin. “Steve – Captain-”

“I’m not going to let you do something to hurt yourself,” Steve said, and Loki wanted to snarl at him. He felt trapped, cornered, and too weak, and he wanted _desperately_ to crawl back between them and go back to sleep, be comforted and bracketed by their warmth. “You need to come here and-”

“I don’t _want_ to-” His voice sounded petulant, childish, even to him, and he was hardly certain how that sentence ended. His knees were shaking and Loki locked them, stubbornly. _You took advantage of me,_ he wanted to snap, but if anything he’d taken advantage of both of them. As weak as he’d been, it would have been possible to suck them dry and hardly realize. 

But no; it would have been possible if there had been only one of them. With both…

“Loki,” Steve said, and he looked a little pale, a little shaky. “Can you sit down while we talk? I can see you wobbling from here.” Loki shot him a scathing glare. 

“ _You,_ ” he said, almost venemous, but his voice sounded too frantic for it to be very effective. “You ought to know that I would _never_ want him to-”

“I would not have agreed to leave if he had told me to,” Thor cut in, and Loki whirled on him with a hiss. 

“Because you are an inconsiderate, oafish-”

I’m not going to apologize,” Steve said, loudly, over both of them. “Loki – if Thor hadn’t come, you’d be dead. So I know _I’m_ grateful. Are you going to yell at me for that?” He was starting to feel a headache behind his eyes, his body quickly weakening. “You need to lie down,” Steve said, after a moment’s pause. “Rest, you’re still…”

“I want you gone,” Loki hissed at Thor. Other things were coming back, now; _a weakling, then,_ and it was making rage he didn’t have the energy for pound in his temples. “I want you _gone,_ get out and don’t come back-” Thor looked uncertain, but he started to rise more properly. 

“Perhaps I should…”

“I don’t think,” Steve started to say as he pushed himself to his feet, the wan look of his face starting to give way to determination. Loki turned on him.

“You as well, _both_ of you can get out, I do not need _minders-_ ” The world was starting to reel and his chest was starting to feel tight. 

Steve planted his feet, his expression going stubborn in that way that Loki most times found endearing. Just now – “No,” he said. “I’m not going. Thor’s not going. And you’re going to set aside your pride for one _damn_ minute and accept that you need help.”

Loki stared at him in pure startlement and blinked helplessly. His heart was pounding too rapidly and too hard, air didn’t seem to quite be reaching his lungs, and he was suddenly struggling to remember why he couldn’t just lie down and rest, a small whispering voice in his head kept trying to tell him that it would be _fine_ to do just that, to do what he wanted. 

He wavered, and Steve took a step in his direction. Thor looked like he was trying hard not to lunge and probably just scoop him off his feet. _I can’t,_ he wanted to say, _if I give in here I’ll never gain back the ground I’d lose, I’ll never be able to push him away again and I’ll just be his shadow, all over again…_

Steve’s expression softened, fractionally. “It’s fine,” he said, quiet and calm, reassuring. “We just…we both just…want to help.” 

“Please, brother,” Thor said, and it was the first time, Loki realized, that Thor had called him that. “Let me do that much. If you will allow me nothing else…let me help you heal.”

Loki swayed, and Steve grabbed his arms, steadying him. _I hate you,_ Loki wanted to say. _My life is worth nothing to me if it is you who returns it,_ but his head dropped onto Steve’s shoulder and the only words he could find were, “I am…so tired.” 

“Then come here. Rest. We don’t have to…do this now.” His voice was gentle, and his thumbs rubbed up and down Loki’s arms. “Just…”

He needed to refuse. Needed to stand on his own and hold himself together and ensure that everyone knew who he was. “All right,” Loki said, though, and exhaled a sigh. “All right.” The world was starting to spin away again. “A little longer. I can…for a little longer.”

“Thor?” He heard, dimly. “Can you…” and then the waves were dragging him out again, consciousness slipping away like sand under his feet.

* * *

When Loki’s thoughts coalesced again he still felt wretched, but it was the wretched of a broken fever, simple exhaustion of the body that left his mind intact. He woke to the quiet back and forth rumble of voices that gradually became Thor’s, and then Steve’s. 

His protectors. 

The thought was flavored with more than slight irony, but it was more sincere than he would have liked for all that. Because he’d been snared, as he’d known he would be. _You are doomed now._

The voices had fallen silent, he realized, suddenly. “Loki?” Steve said, sounding tentative. For a moment, he considered it. With a little bit of effort, he could probably muster up the energy to start another argument, maybe even enough to drive Thor out. With him gone it would be easier to rebuild his broken walls. 

It didn’t quite seem…worth it. Later. It was just…practicality, to conserve his energy, put up with Thor a little longer. (As though he wasn’t savoring the warm solid _secure_ presence at his back.) 

“Don’t hold your breath, Thor,” he pushed out, the words feeling labored, almost stumbling on his tongue. “You’ll suffocate.” He kept his eyes closed, but felt Thor’s relieved exhale. 

“How are you feeling?” Steve, again, and Loki tried hard not to lean his head into the gentle touch at his temple. “You look a little better.” 

“I would hope so. If I didn’t by now then I suspect I wouldn’t be recovering at any point,” Loki murmured, and felt Thor make a discontented noise. 

“And there you go again,” he said, sounding almost exasperated. “Speaking as though your life is of so little consequence – and before, you said…”

“Don’t get so sentimental,” Loki said. His nose was full of Steve’s comforting smell, underlaid with the heavier familiar scent that was Thor. “I will not put up with it.” 

Steve made a strange, abortive noise, and Loki shifted to fit more comfortably between them, not particularly caring to wake himself more fully. “Can I ask…what did you do? Back…”

“Banished your adversary back to whence it came.” Loki exhaled a long sigh. “It’s been…some time since I had to deal with any Limbo-spawn. Must be…rusty.” It was pleasant to just…drift, vaguely detached from the world. 

Thor hissed through his teeth. “ _That’s_ what it was? No wonder it seemed…” he trailed off, and Loki could almost hear him frowning. “Loki…most banishings are done with a circle of sorcerers, are they not?” 

“Mm. I didn’t _exactly_ have six others of the requisite skill on hand.” And he had…maybe, just slightly, panicked. From his distant viewpoint he’d seen them falling, one after the other, even as the beast gained strength and power. Left too long, it would only have become a more formidable foe. He had needed to make a swift decision. 

Fool though he might feel, Loki couldn’t regret the choice.

“So that kind of magic isn’t…the kind of thing you would normally do on your own.” Steve sounded cautious. Why all the questions, Loki wondered, vague and distant. 

“Never,” Thor said, before Loki could think his way through an answer that would ease the blow of the same idea. Steve was not, he thought, going to like that. By the flat note in Thor’s voice, he didn’t either. “It’s one of the most dangerous of spells, the most exhausting, and the most likely to cause a backlash-”

“I didn’t know you paid attention,” Loki mumbled, and Thor huffed. 

“I remember _some_ things,” he said, and then added, quieter, “and there was…an incident. When we were young…a young woman of the Vanir died attempting a banishing. She was brought to Asgard to be healed, but she still…” Thor trailed off.

Loki remembered her. Her screaming had kept him awake for days, and one of the servants had told him with wicked glee that she’d died in ghastly spasms, blood pouring from her as every organ liquefied. Oh yes. He remembered.

“Loki,” Steve said, in that tone of voice that said he was trying very hard to stay calm. Loki held in the urge to sigh. “I’m not going to bother to ask if you _knew_ the risks, but did you – _think_ about them?” 

If his mind had been a little clearer, he might have remembered to lie. “I did,” he said, serenely. “I decided the risk was an acceptable one.” 

He almost felt the clouds gathering, though belatedly, and held in the urge to sigh again. Always so _dramatic._ Thor’s arms tightened around him. Steve’s hands cupped his face. “Can you look at me?” 

Loki dragged his eyes open and cast Steve a crooked half smile. Steve’s expression was…difficult to read. 

“So what you’re telling me,” Steve said, “is that, knowing there was a high risk of – potentially pretty serious harm to yourself – actually, knowing, if I know you, _exactly_ what it would do to you – that you went ahead and did it anyway?” 

“Mm,” Loki said, noncommitally. They were going to make too much of it. Of course they were. No wonder many preferred a heroic death; it involved so many fewer explanations. Steve’s thumbs were warm where they stroked across his cheekbones, though, even if his expression was quickly descending into displeased.

“You’re an idiot,” Steve said flatly. “For such a smart person…”

Loki closed his eyes again. Better _idiot_ than _hero,_ he thought, a little dryly. “Someone had to do something,” Loki mumbled. He felt…better, but his body was still worn almost dry, and all he wanted to do was sleep. “And if it went poorly for me…simple cost-benefit analysis. A relatively…whatever you would like to think…small loss.” 

Steve made a strange sound, and his fingers tightened almost painfully, and he heard Thor make a sound that wasn’t quite a growl. “That is _not-_ ”

“Oh, please,” he said, tiredly. “Do not…get hysterical. It is thoroughly unnecessary.”

“It is certainly necessary if you are going to claim-”

“Thor,” said Steve, “not now,” and Thor actually…quieted. Steve shifted closer. “But we are - we _are_ going to talk about this. Later.”

Loki sighed. “I’m sure I can manage to distract you from that,” he said, and Thor huffed. 

“Both of us at once?” he said, and the stubborn, determined note in his voice made a forgotten, hollowed out part of Loki’s heart ache. “I let you go once, Loki. I will not do so again.”

_What have you done to yourself, Loki Laufeyson? What fine trap have you woven yourself into? They will hold you down and trap you and there will be nowhere to run, can you face that?_

Steve’s lips were warm on his forehead. Their bodies fit together well, and he was just so… _tired._

“You are both fools,” he said, but he was floating away again. “How am I supposed to argue with such…”

“Don’t argue,” Steve said, quietly. “It’s fine for you to rest. It’s just fine.”

Was it? Maybe it was.

He could feel both of them on either side of them, bodies warm and solid and living. The rhythm of their breathing, slightly offset, and the beat of hearts against his back and chest. Between protectors. The world started to float away. 

“This is nice,” he said, without really meaning to. Whatever Thor might think…whatever _Steve_ might think…this didn’t change anything. Or fix anything. He was still just the same. They were just the same. When he woke next he would remember his masks and his walls and that he could not be vulnerable. 

Loki knew it was too late, though. He’d left a door open, and he could feel Thor crawling back in, and it would be so much harder to get him out again when his treacherous heart took him in like a missing piece, nestled alongside Steve in a place that had belonged to him even when it was empty. 

He’d lost. 

But knowing that was like the freest part of falling, and the giddy feeling of being sure, despite all logic, that he wasn’t going to hit ground.


End file.
